Lottery funding to increase choices for cinema audiences

MUMBAI: A documentary, animation and foreign language film are just some of the latest films to receive funding from the UK Film Council’s P&A Fund. This round of awards continues to support films that audiences might not otherwise be able to see, increasing viewing choices and enjoyment for UK audiences.

Momentum Pictures received £210,000 for Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, a character study of an irrepressibly optimistic young woman, which will appeal to a younger audience. The release will be widened to 100 screens using 35mm prints and digital copies. The media campaign will include national media advertising ahead of the film’s 18 April release.

Optimum Releasing received £180,000 for Persepolis, a black and white animation based on the graphic novels by Marjane Satrap which tells the story of a young girl growing up in Iran. The award will allow the 25 April release to be widened to 60 screens.

Twentieth Century Fox received £154,000 for Martin Scorsese’s Shine A Light, the documentary tribute to the Rolling Stones which opened the Berlin Film Festival. The award supported a groundbreaking biggest-ever live premiere in which 98 cinemas around the country linked with the Leicester Square premiere for a one-off event screening.

Further awards have been made to a range of independent and classic films allowing them to broaden their availability to audiences through the Digital Screen Network:

* Tartan Film Distribution – £20,000 for Chan-Wook Park’s I’m A Cyborg, an offbeat Korean film about a girl who believes she is a robot and £5,000 for Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely about a commune of impersonators in the Scottish Highlands.

* Artificial Eye – £4,360 for You, The Living, a Swedish film inspired by a collection of ancient Icelandic proverbs, £3,604 for Under The Bombs, a drama documentary about innocent Lebanese citizens caught up in the war, and £5,000 for Terror’s Advocate, a documentary about Jacques Vergès, a lawyer whose career has been built on defending terrorists and dictators.

* Lionsgate UK – £5,000 for The Waiting Room, a tale of two couples and their respective infidelities and break-ups.

* Cyclops Vision Ltd – £5,000 for Tovarisch, I Am Not Dead, a documentary about Garri Urban, a Polish Jew under the Soviet and Nazi occupations.

* Peccadillo Pictures – £5,000 for XXY, an Argentinian coming-of-age film about a teenage hermaphrodite and her search for self-identity.

* EMI/Shooting People Films – £5,000 for We Are Together, a moving documentary about a choir at a South African orphanage.

* Slingshot Productions – £1,560 for Water Lilies, a French drama about a young synchronised swimmer who forms a crush on an older girl in her team.

* Park Circus – £5,000 for Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps, being re-released as part of a Robert Donat season at BFI Southbank and Filmhouse Edinburgh.

* The Works – £5,000 for Joy Division, the definitive documentary about the Manchester band.

*Metrodome Distribution – £4,972 for Sarah Polley’s Away From Her, the Oscar-nominated film starring Julie Christie and £5,000 for Assembly, a powerful true story about one of the bloodiest battles in Chinese history.